The Shimmering Veils of Pride

Next, the heroes decided to explore the wing of pride – illusion magic – in order to find a component to forge into a weapon to use against Runelord Karzoug. Unsurprisingly, the halls of pride were filled with floor to ceiling mirrors, and at their entrance was a very dangerous trap: two mirrors of opposition, which produced duplicates of the heroes each time they saw their reflection in these mirrors.

It was only after four copies of Nu and Cecil, and two copies of Nova, had appeared that Ciaran realised their only chance of survival was to destroy the mirrors and prevent any duplicates from appearing – the fight was already going poorly for Cecil and Nu as they struggled to defend themselves against their own impressive skills.

A well-aimed disintegrate destroyed the first mirror, taking with it the duplicates it had spawned. A fireball took care of the second mirror, saving the party from grim defeat at their own hands. The next room contained many more mirrors – fortunately none of these spawned any duplicates – and a magnificent illusory peacock in the centre of the room. There were also six identical men who attacked the heroes on sight.

After dealing with the strangely identical men, the heroes found a dead man in the next room who himself was identical to the men they had just slain. The magic of Runeforge made it seem like he had died only moments ago, when it could actually have been years – there was no way to tell. His diary did not mention dates, but it seemed he had succumbed to some sort of dimensia before he could clone a new body for himself.

Further rooms contained neatly stacked bodies – elderly versions of the dead man in the previous room. To add to the unsettling feeling of the place, one of the once impressive libraries had been torn apart, apparently in anger. The final room was perhaps the most dangerous and disturbing of all, for it contained six copies of the succubus that the heroes had defeated in the halls of lust. Though individually weaker than the real thing, six succubi proved difficult for the heroes to defeat – especially once one of them successfully dominated Cecil and ordered him to attack Ciaran.

Still, the demons proved no match for the remaining heroes, and the final one was forced to flee. With the succubi vanquished, Ciaran made good use of the confined space and created a resilient sphere around Nu, effectively blocking the way and trapping Cecil while Nanali cast a spell to break the charm spell that the succubus had cast on Cecil.